# System Utility: Git Pull (Shallow & Pinned) 🔧📥

## Description

This Ansible role provides a **robust, reusable Git pull utility** for system automation.
It performs shallow clones or updates of Git repositories and optionally **pins the working tree
to a specific tag** (e.g. `stable`) in a detached HEAD state.

The role is designed to solve common automation pitfalls such as:
- conflicting local tags (`would clobber existing tag`)
- detached HEAD updates
- annotated vs. lightweight tags
- reliable change detection for Ansible

Internally, the role delegates complex Git logic to a small, well-tested Python helper script,
keeping the Ansible YAML concise and readable.

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## Overview

This role:
- Ensures a repository exists at a given destination
- Clones the repository shallowly if it does not exist
- Updates an existing repository in a **detached-safe** manner
- Optionally removes conflicting local tags before fetching
- Optionally pins the checkout to a specific tag (e.g. `stable`)
- Marks the Ansible task as `changed` if:
  - the repository was cloned
  - tags were removed
  - the pinned tag appeared for the first time
  - the pinned tag moved on the remote (optional)

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## Purpose

The purpose of this role is to provide a **generic, reusable Git pull primitive**
for other roles in the Infinito.Nexus ecosystem.

Typical use cases include:
- installing tools pinned to a `stable` tag
- reproducible system deployments
- CI/CD-friendly shallow clones
- avoiding fragile inline Git shell logic in roles

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## Features

- **Shallow Clone & Update** (`--depth`)
- **Detached-safe Branch Updates**
- **Optional Tag Pinning** (e.g. `stable`)
- **Annotated Tag Support** (`tag^{}`)
- **Local Tag Conflict Healing**
- **Deterministic `changed_when` Semantics**
- **Verbose Debug Logging (stderr-only)**

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## Design Notes

* All human-readable logs go to **stderr**
* Machine-readable state (`CHANGED=…`) is written to **stdout**
* This guarantees reliable `changed_when` behavior in Ansible
* The Python helper is intentionally self-contained and unit-testable

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## Credits 📝

Developed and maintained by **Kevin Veen-Birkenbach**
Learn more at [www.veen.world](https://www.veen.world)

Part of the **Infinito.Nexus Project**
🔗 [https://s.infinito.nexus/code](https://s.infinito.nexus/code)